There is a growing need for improved devices that can immobilize patients or patient anatomies. For example, thermoplastic sheets are known and used as patient immobilizers in radiation therapy to reduce or prevent movement of patient anatomies during therapy. Such sheets are heated to become formable, formed over a part of a patient's anatomy, and then cooled to harden, thereby immobilizing the patient or patient's anatomy for the treatment therapy.
Despite developments that have been made in connection with such devices, there remains a need for improved patient immobilizers as well as improved methods and processes for immobilizing patients in terms of at least one of cost control, enhanced performance, and ease of use.